He was convicted of strangling the mother of his children with a dog leash. Now he’ll spend life in prison.

A Malden man convicted of strangling the mother of his children to death with a dog leash, all while two young children were in the home, will spend life in prison.Ryan Power, 34, was found guilty of first-degree murder on Thursday by a Middlesex Superior Court jury. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole by Judge Peter Krupp, a news release from the Middlesex County District Attorney’s Office said.It was around 9:49 a.m. on June 21, 2017, that Malden police were called to a Lebanon Street home for a report of an unresponsive woman. In the residence, officers found the body of 32-year-old Leah Penny at the bottom of a staircase, with a dog leash around her neck and a bottle of vodka underneath her. The two young children, ages 1 and 2, were not hurt.That same day, Malden police, along with state police assigned to the Middlesex County District Attorney’s Office, sought out Power, the release said. He was found in Seabrook, New Hampshire, arrested, and brought back to Massachusetts as a fugitive from justice.Through an investigation, authorities learned the defendant and victim had been in a relationship that started in 2014, and they had two children together, according to the release.“Authorities determined that based on the positioning of the body, and the bottle placed beneath her, the scene had been staged by the defendant who, after strangling the victim from behind with the leash, posed her body in an effort to make it appear the victim’s death was accidental or committed by another person,” the release said.On Power’s phone, authorities reportedly found 48 recordings of arguments between him and Penny that he took without her knowing. Power also used recordings to document his relationship with her, according to the release.“The recordings were made between April and May of 2017, coinciding with the dissolution of Ryan Power and Leah Penny’s relationship, including during a period when the defendant was not living in the Lebanon Street residence,” the release said. “The defendant also installed hidden cameras on June 3, 2017 within the home he had shared with the victim in order to record her without her knowledge.”There was also a recording in which Power allegedly assaulted Penny and threatened to kill her.

Ryan Power is accused of strangling Leah Penny with a leash in 2017. The pair had two children together, who were sleeping in cribs when Penny’s body was discovered. #wcvb pic.twitter.com/SSSVU0YNrk

— Katie Thompson (@KThompson_WCVB) August 21, 2019